


Rules for Your Conduct

by Reinette_de_la_Saintonge



Series: From Wolford's Archives [2]
Category: Turn (TV 2014)
Genre: (well actually it's physics but that sounds boring), Character Development, Character Study, Family, Family Dynamics, Fire Magic, Funny, Georgian Period, Historical References, Literature, Loss of Parent(s), Period Typical Attitudes, Physics, References to Shakespeare, Sad, School, Shakespeare Quotations, Sibling Rivalry, Teachers, Wigs, ten-year-old being up to no good
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-25
Updated: 2018-02-25
Packaged: 2019-03-23 23:16:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,409
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13798410
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Reinette_de_la_Saintonge/pseuds/Reinette_de_la_Saintonge
Summary: Exeter, 1762: a ten-year-old Simcoe is, well, just as you would imagine a ten-year-old Simcoe who dislikes school and dreams of becoming a famous general to be... Or is he?For all those reading "The Colonel's Portrait", this one-shot features the wig-incident referred to by Simcoe in chapter 14, in which he recounts his childhood misdeeds, in case you are curious.





	Rules for Your Conduct

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Maryassassina](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Maryassassina/gifts).



> Happy 266th birthday, John Graves Simcoe! On this day, let's go back to the past- way back to the past into the days before John Graves Simcoe ever sat foot on American Shores. 
> 
> Warning: period-typical corporal punishment in schools.
> 
> This is dedicated to Maryassassina, who gave me so many wonderful ideas for this fic all the way back in November.

The battle was over. He lay on his back, limbs outstretched and watched the leaves on the tree above him dance in the soft May breeze, their gentle spring-green colour glowing in the golden sunlight.

He closed his eyes, savouring the first summer-warm rays of light on his face and listened to the gentle whisper of the leaves who were telling him all their secrets in a language he couldn't understand.

This was as life should always be, he thought and pretended he did not know who he was, where he was and that he was just another of the pretty little violets among whom his head lay bedded in the grass beneath the tree.

They'd find him, and find him soon.

By now, they had probably worked out already that he wasn't hiding anywhere in the school and hadn't run home to Mother either. He wasn't stupid.

As always, at first he had been firm in his resolve not to be found by anyone ever again, spurned on by his rage, but after a while, he always grew somewhat indifferent to everything when the first bout of angry indignation gave way to pensiveness.

He sighed, inhaling the sweet scent of the violets hiding in the unruly reddish mess on his head.

He'd be punished, that was for certain, but for the moment, no cane or whip could trouble him or his thoughts and besides, he was used to being punished.

This time however, he was not finding himself dreading the rough treatment at the hand of his captors (teachers) much, this time he told himself, he would savour every stroke with the awfully flexible cane across his back or bottom and the unpleasant week thereafter when the blows would heal with glee, because what he'd done to be subjected to such harsh measures of punishment had been worth it.

Mr Trevelyan had had it coming for a while now.

Smiling to himself, he recalled the image of the small, stout, weasle-faced man with the beady beetle-eyes grabbing frantically with both his hands for his wig, which was burning a little bit, ripping it off his skull (and revealing a completely bald scalp underneath in the process) and trampling on it to extinguish the flame.

It had been quite easy and besides, Mr Trevelyan's wig had been just as horrible as its wearer, a grey horsehair-thing that looked as if he rented it out to a bird-family after class to sleep in there.

A week ago, he had overheard another boy's talk of some experiment with electricity he had read about in one of his father's books and that he was sad he would probably never get to make lighting flashes or the like. They'd gone on about becoming scientists and talked about the things they would like to do as scietists once they were grown up and one of them (the first boy who had been so fascinated with lightning) said it was a pity there wasn't any contraption big enough to make a lightning powerful enough to transform the universally disliked Mr Trevelyan into a small, smouldering heap of dust and his companion agreed. This however did not deter them from imagining how gratifying it would be and the vivid pictures their tale evoked in his head entertained him to no end.

Yes, someone should some day take revenge for all these hours Trevelyan kept the pupils shackled to their desks, how he was always mean, assigned heaps of work to them they could never hope to finish and was extremely short-tempered, which resulted in his free usage of the cane. It appeared almost to be an informal rite of passage for any new student to be whipped by the terrible Arhythmetics-teacher- you weren't a part of the school until you've felt Trevelyan's wrath on your backside.

Their little fantasy sounded more than appealing of course, but highly urealistic. There had to be a way to get revenge, though and assuming an immediate comradeship with the two whom he otherwise did not speak to much although they were in his year, turned around to them and offered his take on the situation.

"You know, I like your idea, but lightning is quite difficult to make, especially if one lacks the equipment. You could of course try and catch some in a jar come the next thunderstorm, but I wouldn't try that."

"Who asked you, Simcoe? And how do you think I'm so stupid-"

"I convinced my little brother to do it once. It was quite entertaining to watch."

His mischievous grin warmed the other boys' faces somewhat as well.

"So you have a better idea?"

"Not yet, but I want Trevelyan to get what he deserves", he had replied darkly.

A week and a half ago he had received a beating because he couldn't solve a problem Trevelyan had asked him to explain and had then upbraided him in front of the entire class for being "stupid", "impervious to reason" a "wicked, idle little fellow" whose "astonishingly limited mental capacities" were "best employed sewing and knitting with the womenfolk" instead of "occupying a place at a reputable institution that could be awarded to a worthier candidate". The mean old bastard had continued in his litany by berating him for his hair colour and enumerating some of his previous misdeeds. It was of some comfort to know that he treated all boys like this, not him exclusively and so far he had borne whatever Trevelyan had said and done to him with a defiant, cold smirk on his lips, for he wouldn't give that man the joy of seeing his true feelings, even if deep inside, he wept in a place in his heart none of his classmates or Trevelyan could see when the tenth blow of the cane caused a new welt on his skin or Trevelyan's words found their way into his soul.

The last straw had presented itself to him a few days ago when Trevelyan, an ex-army man who tried to instil discipline and "manly rigour" in his students as per his own words, had found him writing poetry and called him womanish, emotional and then had proceeded to read his poem to the entire class, who had laughed, some more genuinely, some others only out of duty, for doing the opposite of what Trevelyan expected of them might land everybody else in trouble, too.

To be fair, Mr Tomlinson, who taught Latin and was a friend of the classics, enjoyed poetry and he was a respectable gentleman. Sometimes, he would read a poem by a famous Roman author and make it the motto of his class or simply comment on the elegance of classical literature. He liked Mr Tomlinson.

It was Mr Tomlinson in most cases, too who sometimes shielded him from trouble. For some reason Mr Tomlinson, perhaps some ten years younger than his godfather, seemed to like him.

His "poetic labours" as Mr Tomlinson called them, were no secret and hadn't been even before Mr Trevelyan had been so cruel to him and sometimes, the Latin teacher would ask him after class if he could see some of his work, for he found, while the school did provide its students with a thorough education in the sciences and taught them everything else young gentlemen ought to know, he thought the cultivation of cultural joys, which gave the finishing touch to a polished gentleman, were being grossly neglected.

“Good work, Simcoe”, Mr Tomlinson had said at his latest poem and then continued, “I wish you to continue to write.”

“Why would you like that, Sir?”

“Because you enjoy it. You might never reach the literary genius of the Bard and write plays that inspire generations and never find the golden words of Ovid or Catullus- but you need not to, to be a poet in your own right and for the act of writing to bring you joy and make you practised in the gentlemanly expression of the written word. In addition to this, you know, I find writing poetry is an excellent exercise for the mind- it orders one’s thoughts by putting them onto paper in carefully chosen words wrought into expressions of euphony. Therefore, I am of the opinion that poetry is of as much importance to man and as much an expression of Reason and rational thought as Mr Trevelyan’s sums and divisions are.”

Only Mr Trevelyan didn’t see it in the same way. It hadn’t taken him long to devise a plan, which was equally quickly relayed to his now co-conspirators.

The past weekend, his mother had taken him to see his godfather, for she said it would do him good. He knew what she meant by saying that; she meant that she thought he needed his father, who was dead, and tried to replace him with the spare they had chosen to stand by the baptismal font to take the place as second best in case of the death of his parents.

He missed him very much, even three years later, but nobody could replace him, not even his godfather who was usually kind to him.

On this visit, he had, rather unexpectedly, found inspiration for his vengeance on Trevelyan: The Admiral, who’d allowed him to sit in his study to read in peace while he was showing some visitor the library which usually became his own little kingdom when he visited would not come back until much later, emboldening him to inspect the contents of Admiral Graves’ desk.

It wasn’t like he was stealing anything, so at least to his mind, there was no criminal aspect to be found in looking around and opening a drawer or two.

Papers, boring papers about things he didn’t know enough about to find them interesting and old bills, that was the main content of most drawers apart from spare writing utensils and a really interesting dagger or so that he had seen the Admiral use for opening letters.

He wasn’t allowed to touch it normally, for as his mother and his godfather seemed to agree, sharp things ought not to be used by children unless under incessant supervision and generally shouldn’t use them unless required. Years later, he would come to savour the irony of the fact that his mother had worried about the rather dull blade of a letter opener, but had had no qualms about letting him cut his meat by himself with an adult-sized table knife at dinner.

Ha. He wondered if it was stupid Percy who got them the idea that children couldn’t be trusted with sharp things, because he could definitively be trusted. He swung it through the air experimentally, pretending it was a sabre and he an officer in the army and engaged in a fierce battle against whatever enemy struck his fancy; he continued his game for several minutes and within that short span of time of running around the office and shouting orders at his invisible men, the French, Prussian and Russian armies had capitulated to General Lord John Graves Simcoe Duke of Exeter KG, GCB, unconditionally.

Happily humming his favourite tune, _The British Grenadiers_ (which he had learned from his father) he sat the letter opener down in the exact spot he had found it in. One would not want to draw attention to one’s secret doings. After a while, his game had grown very boring, because the enemy wasn’t really fighting back and because victory was coming so easily. If he’d have had the mind to do it, he could have conquered the entire world in ten minutes, but that would have been boring- besides, he had to leave some armies to defeat for the next time he was playing soldiers again.

Thus, he decided to continue looking at the contents of his godfather’s drawers again- perhaps, among all this paper mess, he wouldn’t notice if he took a pencil. Some idiot at school had broken his on purpose and he really needed one to write quite badly.

Admiral Graves surely wouldn’t mind, he was his godfather after all and should afford him such little curtsies as a pencil by obligation to do so, after all, he’d given his word to his father that he would look after him when, as adults tended to call it “the unthinkable” happened. Papa would without doubt given him a new pencil, so Admiral Graves would, or at least should, too without hesitation, but he wouldn’t trouble such a busy man as him by pestering him with such a trifle of a question.

Slipping the pencil into his pocket, he was filing through what felt like a mountain of lists drawing up the monthly household expenses of Hembury Fort House going back to the days of Adam and Eve, he found a rather interesting object: a magnifying glass.

It had been fun to play with for a short while, watching the reflection of his grimaces in the window pane as he held the magnifying glass over his mouth or one eye to make it appear grotesquely enlarged, but this game had also bored him very quickly. The magnifying glass itself however, not.

Digging a little deeper into the bottommost drawer, he had suddenly found himself holding a letter in his hands that was dated a few months before Percy’s birth and addressed to Admiral Graves by his father. Eager to find out what his father had written (and not quite tired of playing with the magnifying glass yet) he had laid down on his belly underneath one of the tall windows through which the sunshine fell and began to read.

It was slow, not very rewarding work; his father’s hand had been narrow and small and he unpractised in deciphering it. Thus, it took him very long to make out individual letters and reassemble them to make entire words- it reminded him a bit of learning how to read in the first place, but coming to compare the two things, he found having learned to read in printed books a lot easier than trying to decipher his father’s hand.

Having hovered particularly long over a word that looked like nothing but consonants to him but that ought to contain a vowel somewhere, unless his vocabulary of the English language was very dull and limited, which it wasn’t, for Mr Tomlinson always praised his use of words (although he didn’t always know exactly what they meant when he picked them up in an old book), all of a sudden, the word began to disappear beneath his eyes- there was smoke, and a little fire-

With one more desperate rather than doughty swat of his hands, as one would kill a fly, he extinguished the fire and put the somewhat burnt letter sheepishly back where it belonged, hoping his godfather would never find out.

His carelessness had created a small, blackish scorch-mark on the floorboards as well, which the maids would hopefully assign to a candle dropped one night and not ask any questions or tell the Admiral about when they discovered it while cleaning.

How could he have been so stupid? He should have known- hadn’t they burnt bugs and ants with a shard of glass last summer in the school yard? That trick had worked just the same, only a proper magnifying glass such as this one would surely be more efficient…

Hiss mind wandered from exercising cruelty against ants and a possible weapon that could destroy all bugs and crawly-things in Devon to Mr Trevelyan’s horrid wig.

He didn’t know how his mind made the direct association of his despicable teacher’s horrid headwear with the situation (perhaps because it looked like a nesting-place for birds and birds fed on ants and bugs and the like), but the idea was not bad.

Not bad at all. Trevelyan would be frightened. Ha. He would make the man pay. At least he would try, because he wasn’t sure if it would work, if the wig would, from a greater distance than he had held the magnifying glass to the paper (or the shard of glass over an ant) start to smoulder or burn.

Well, he would have to try, in the name of science and eventual retribution. Trevelyan wouldn’t be laughing anymore soon.

Quietly, he put the magnifying glass in his pocket and sneaked to his room where he hid his new treasure underneath his cushion next to Lion, his most prized possession. Come the next day, he would smuggle it, undetected back home with him.

It wasn’t really _stealing_ , he was only borrowing it; after all, he didn’t have the intention of keeping it. He would put it back where he found it the next time they would visit.

Although it felt a little wrong when he sat at the breakfast table the next morning just before their departure home to Exeter, he had managed not to give himself away.

The magnifying glass lay concealed in the back of a book he had carved out with a knife and in which he kept all his treasures. Percy didn’t like reading very much so he would never touch it and his mother, who had upon his imploring begging kept some of his father’s old books, had no idea either.

The book in question was an unassuming copy of the first volume of _Pamela_ or _Virtue Rewarded_ that had for some reason found its way in between his father’s small library of naval treatises and historical writings. Curious as to why such a novel would be found among these books, he had begun to read it. He hadn’t liked it at all and had not even bothered to read the second part; Mr B. was a very rude man, no gentleman should treat a lady in this way, servant or not.

Generally speaking, he could never “hurt” a book thus by cutting the text out and only leaving a finger-wide of paper on each side so when opened, the book, now devoid of its former content, would form some sort of treasure chest, but this book hadn’t been particularly interesting and at least, it was useful now.

Hollowing out the book however, cutting it with precision, had been a surprisingly fulfilling task he had accomplished with one of the cook’s knifes, which he had borrowed in a similar manner as the Admiral’s magnifying glass.

Hidden in _Pamela_ , which he pressed in such a manner into his chest that it remained half-hidden beneath his coat so the title could not be read by anyone and cause him to be stopped and asked questions regarding why a little boy would read such a book as this, he carried the magnifying glass to school the next day.

All night, he had felt the anticipation building in his stomach and, as he walked through the arched doorway, the tension within him mounted tenfold from his initial mischievous anticipation of finally getting his revenge to a certain dread he could not quite explain.

But he must not falter in his resolve. He was strong, he was a soldier, just like his father, and Trevelyan was just another enemy, no better than the French. Depending on how one pronounced his name, it even sounded a little French.

Minutes crept by like hours during the first class of the day, which was held by Mr Trevelyan, and more than once did he think himself ready to strike, but retreated at the last minute.

His glory-time came however when Trevelyan bent down over the shoulder of a boy sitting in the row before him to torture the unfortunate soul by “helping” him correct some sums. Half-bent over the other boy like that, the black ribbon and rather unsightly horse-tail that his wig formed at the back of his head that had nothing of the curled elegance of the wig his godfather wore, or even the, though visibly less expensive ones Mr Tomlinson and other gentlemen he knew donned.

The conditions for his attack were splendid, he could not have wished for better weather than this on his mission: the spring sun shone through the windows and him being seated near them (so near in fact that the sunlight directly fell onto him, making him squint whenever he wanted to look up from the wooden desk in front of him and caused the pale backs of his hands to glow like some rare metal reflecting the sun), his position to launch an attack was more than favourable.

Finally, taking one deep, though concealed breath so no one around him would hear, he reached for the book he had hidden by keeping it balanced on his knees close to the desktop, reached inside in one swift motion and drew the magnifying glass from its hiding place.

Thirty-odd eyes were staring at him, he could tell, for he could feel them on his back. Those sitting closer to him wrinkled their foreheads or opened their mouths as if to say something, perhaps even to, traitors as they all were, sell him out to Trevelyan but didn’t in the end for against Mr Trevelyan, they all stood united, friend or foe.

Slowly, the first of his comrades began to realise what he was doing and a few timid, suppressed giggles started to make their rounds from the back, where he sat, to the front of the room.

“Quiet!”, Trevelyan snarled dangerously, causing an instant silence to creep over the room again. Nobody wanted to be struck by Trevelyan’s cane for laughing. They all, their temporary hero with his stolen magnifying glass included, knew that there would be a punishment, that one of them would feel the teacher’s wrath rather sooner than later and considered it wise not to do anything stupid to cause themselves trouble as well.

It didn’t take long once he had positioned the glass correctly so it would throw a bright spot of light onto the queue of Trevelyan’s wig. At first, there was a little smoke timidly rising into the air, a few moments later however, a little, orange flame began to hungrily devour Trevelyan’s wig.

The other boys caught their breath as they looked on, their eyes alternating between the still oblivious Trevelyan, wide with fear, and glances of admiration to the boy they usually shunned.

The feeling of being admired felt good and as a classmate shot him a smile, he grinned back, not knowing why he did, but knowing it felt nice.

Alas, the other boy’s smile had distracted him from the enemy, a mistake he had learned on this day not to make ever again.

With a deafening cry (the fire had reached the area where the wig joined the teacher’s scalp), Trevelyan tore the burning mess of horsehair from his head and threw it onto the floor, where he trampled on it like a horse gone mad to put the fire out while rubbing the back of his neck, which was a little red from the heat, but not hurt, and cried in a voice that caused a flock of starlings to vacate their tree opposite the window under twitters of protest and that likely had resounded loudly throughout the entire county, “SIMCOE!”

Caught red-handed with the magnifying glass in his hand, Trevelyan had grabbed him by the scruff of his neck and marched him to the headmaster, where he was screamed at by both men and reprimanded for his misconduct by several blows stricken against his ears and cheeks.

But he didn’t care. He didn’t feel any of the pain. His mind had long retired to the place he always went when he couldn’t bear the people around him anymore, the place that he had started to inhabit at the time of his father’s death. It was a complete little world of his own nobody knew of, in which he was the hero, not a naughty schoolboy, the general from his pretend-games and respected by everyone, a world in which the other boys would leave him alone for having red hair and a voice that often attracted mockeries like other boys telling him they wouldn’t play with him because he was a girl who only dressed like a boy, which was wrong and besides, all girls were known to be stupid anyway.

In this world, his father was alive and his mother happy; Trevelyan would live in fear of him because surely his father would never allow the man to be so nasty and mean to him and he had been a brave man as he had heard from the tales of his mother and godfather, a Captain who could command a ship and a valiant soldier at that.

As he was shaken by the shoulders again for not having answered a question he had been asked by the headmaster (not out of malice or defiance, but because he had genuinely not paid attention, having concentrated on keeping the world around him at a distance by focussing on the still very fresh memory of Trevelyan grabbing for his burning wig), they had called him back into the present and the situation he found himself in.

He was cornered, the headmaster on his left, Trevelyan on his right, both shouting at him, frothed spittle repeatedly landing in his face. Like animals were wont to do, a reflex told him to run. With his long legs that had him exceed in sportive games over the other boys his age, he took a step backward and, using the element of surprise, made a run for the door, crossing the room in three quick strides and tore it open.

Running as fast as he could, he had soon eluded his captors and left the school far behind him, having hidden behind a cart on some street corner and later having walked in the opposite direction he would have taken had he wanted to go home. Now, far away by the river and several hours later, he felt at peace.

“Simcoe! There you are, Simcoe.”

The voice belonged to Mr Tomlinson, the wig slightly askew, which he corrected instantly as he stopped before him, stepping into the sunlight that had previously warmed his face. The man, though not old, was, judging by the slight elevation of his stomach, not a man accustomed to such physical exertions as hunting an absconded student, which was accentuated even more by the redness in his cheeks. When the man had drawn a few breaths, his sincere, very dark eyes found their much younger, ice-pale counterparts.

“What have you done again.”

Mr Tomlinson wasn’t asking a question, he was stating a fact.

“The entire school is looking for you and your mother has been made aware of your disappearance. Come with me now.”

“What, to be whipped? I’m staying here. I’m not stupid.”

“No you are not”, the man replied in honesty, “but sometimes I wish you were.”

Upon seeing the angry frown on his student’s face, he elaborated:

“You’re no mindless idiot, Simcoe, as the headmaster and doubtlessly Mr Trevelyan, too, think. Beyond doubt, you are quite intelligent and thus responsible for your deeds- and you will be held responsible for them in due time.”

“I’m not coming with you”, he repeated, demonstratively closing his eyes as if enjoying the sun again that was overcast by the tall shadow of his teacher.

“Enough games. You will only make it worse.”

“Worse, Sir? I know only one thing that’s worse than to suffer Trevelyan and that is to die!”

“Don’t say things you don’t mean. Now rise and follow me. I shall not tell anybody you resisted me if you come along willingly now.”

“’Willingly’? I will ‘willingly’ fight you, sir, so I can die a brave man and will not bow my head to any of them again!”

To illustrate his seriousness, he rose and lifted his fists, his back only one step away from the strong trunk of the tree.

“Simcoe. Do you think your situation will be improved by punching a teacher after setting fire to another?”

Mr Tomlinson was right, this he could not deny. He was in hot waters already and had known it would come to this. Most unwillingly, with his head held high and suppressing a tear or two thinking of the punishment that surely awaited him, he followed Mr Tomlinson.

Shortly before they reached school grounds again, Mr Tomlinson made him stop and, giving him a sympathetic smile, whispered half-audibly “I think Trevelyan looked quite funny without his wig.”

These words spoken in careful sympathy with a young arsonist did not quite make him feel better, but they were not nothing, either.

 

 

His mind is back under the tree, lying in the lush, green grass. His eyes are closed and on his eyelids, the golden speckles of the sunlight among the leaves tease him gently and the smell of violets accompanied rather musically by the song of a solitary blackbird soothe him, convince him to fall asleep. It is nice there, and when he listens closely and for one moment pushes the birdsong to the back of his mind, can hear his father hum a low melody somewhere in the distance.

They beat him, he had known the birching would come and had prepared himself for it. It doesn’t matter, he has fought and he has won a battle. None of this matters, he tries to tell himself as he bites his lower lip and draws blood as the next blow strikes him.

He doesn’t count them, first of all, he would not want to shock Trevelyan to death by making him realise he is capable of basic summation and thus become guilty of his murder and besides, only cowards count, because they want it to be over soon and wish to know exactly how many more blows they still have to endure. He won’t give the gloating Trevelyan this joy, ever. He is stronger than Trevelyan is, and the defiance in his eyes that even manages to rein in the tears he would like to set free were he alone, probably vexes him to no end. He will never be subdued by any man, ever.

When they’re through with him, he rises from his knees, knowing he will not sit easily for a weak at minimum, but bears his punishment with his head held high and even manages a most civil bow as he bids his teachers goodbye in a friendly tone as good boys do and relishes momentarily in their anger at his seeming imperviousness to a severe punishment.

They send him home with Mr Tomlinson, who is to talk to his mother (perhaps even about taking him away to another school). On his way and now safely out of sight and earshot of Trevelyan and the headmaster, his shoulders start to hang and the fresh welts across his backside and lower back sting. The bulwark is crumbling against the enemy and a tear steals across his face.

Perhaps he shouldn’t have done it. It was funny, yes, and it had felt good and the others had liked him, but now, his mother will be cross and so will his godfather.

For the first time on this day, he is afraid.

Mr Tomlinson speaks to his mother, does not exaggerate, but does not omit any detail either. When he leaves them, he tells her they will have to replace the wig most likely and that he is not to come to school in the following days.

“John, what have you been thinking?”

His mother, once Mr Tomlinson has gone, scolds him a little, too, bitter tears of disappointment on her cheeks. She bids him sit down with her on the daybed, taking his hand in hers while the other forces his head to face her and asks him repeatedly why. Why is he like this? Why can he not be a well-behaved boy like Percy, why must he always get into trouble?

The truth is, he doesn’t know. “Trouble” usually finds him first.

As he tries to sit down next to her on the settee, he flinches, his wounds from the latest battle still fresh.

“What is that, John? Let me see.”

A little embarrassed, he obeys his mother, who grows pale and presses a hand to her mouth as he reveals the marks of his punishment to her. He is to go to his room, she orders, and lie down on his stomach on his bed. He obeys her and an instant later, she enters and applies some cold cream to the welts, which makes them hurt even more, but once the initial throbbing pain subsides, they feel somewhat better.

“You are no cruel boy. Why do you do such things?”

She pushes some strands of hair out of his face with fond, caressing fingers. But he cannot answer. Slowly realising what he has done, he feels somewhat ashamed for having liked the feeling of watching the wig burn, but it has simply felt so good to see his enemy like this, _fearing him_.

He doesn’t say anything and simply looks at her with the eyes he knows belonged to his father and whom she tries so desperately to find reflected in him, not only by his physical appearance (although the hair is undoubtedly an heirloom passed down her line), but by his personality.

Eventually, she leaves him to himself. He sleeps a little, back among the sunshine under the tree once more, composing little rhymes in his head or thinking about brave knights and fine Roman warriors.

His fingers reach under his pillow and find Lion there, a wooden toy lion his father had gifted him shortly before going away to sea for the last time and he feels somewhat consoled.

Even stupid little Percy (with whom he, much to his dismay, has to share a room) is nice to him that evening, who has heard from the commotion at school what had happened and assures him that while he is “naughty and a little stupid”, he vaguely expresses he would have liked to see his older brother’s latest inglorious feat.

“That must have been so much funnier than the time you locked Lionel Crowby in the broom cupboard and read to him from that book the Admiral lent to you-“

“Dante’s _Divine Comedy_ , the bit about hell”, he interjects, impatiently refreshing his brother’s memory. “You’d think the son of a clergyman would know what happens to people who steal, I was merely saving his soul, if you look at it like that. And he simply wouldn’t listen to me when I tried to tell him he should give you your sixpence back.”

“But that was mean.”

“Perhaps.”

“What if you go to hell, for being cruel to him?”

“Then I’ll come in the seventh circle of hell and he in the eighth, so I’m still better off than he is.”

“But then you’ll be all alone, because Papa is in heaven and Mamma will go to heaven too, and I have never-“

Percy quickly catches himself from making a comment about his elder brother’s misdeeds as his unusually blue eyes glare up at him.

“We’d miss you.”

“Well, you’re not going to die any time soon and our mother isn’t either. And I won’t go just like that when the time comes.”

“Does the Devil wear a wig?”, Percy suddenly wanted to know.

“I suppose not, why?”

“So you can’t set him on fire then like you did Mr Trevelyan to escape him.”

He can’t help it, he has to suppress a chuckle.

“Don’t worry Percy, the Devil is very hairy and has a goatee, and there is enough fire in hell to roast ten of his sort.”

“How do you know?”

“Well, I suppose wicked children simply know”, he answers dryly.

Percy, who is two years his junior and of an altogether different disposition than he, does not remark on the sarcasm in his sentence, a very grown-up thing to use when one wants to make a much ruder or harsher remark than one can or should.

“Why do you have to be so wicked, John?”

“One of us has to be, I guess.”

He really doesn’t want to talk to Percy right now.

“But I like you more when you’re not wicked, John.”

His little brother sounds almost sad. If only to end this conversation, he assures him he will try not to be. Upon hearing this, Percy, whom he can’t see because he has turned onto his right side facing the wall, his aching back covered up under a thin blanket, comes over to him and sits down on his bed, clumsily scraping against his battle-injuries as he does.

“Ow.”

He wants to protest and send the little one to the opposite side of the room to his bed (it is growing later by the minute and he really wants to sleep) but seeing his brother’s face hovering over him with concern, he allows him to sit there and doesn’t say a thing.

Percy simply sits there and watches him, which he finds somewhat unsettling, but can’t do anything about.

At last, Percy rises and walks over to his own bed. As he climbs beneath the covers and makes himself comfortable (as usual he is very annoying any particularly noisy doing so), he asks “can you tell me one of Papa’s stories? You remember them better than I do.”

The truth is, he is not in the mood to tell a story and he doesn’t remember all of them in detail anymore either- he simply makes things up when his memory reaches its natural boundaries and pretends this is what their father has always said.

“I want to hear the one about the storm and the sailor who finds a seal, but it isn’t a seal-“

Sighing, he begins his tale.

“There once was a sailor, a midshipman on a proud ship of the Royal Navy, not very long ago, I think, and he was one of the best seamen that ever sailed the seven seas. One day…”

Before his mind’s eye, his father’s story comes to life. With one hand, concealed under the cushion, he grips Lion very tightly, and in this moment, it is almost as if he can hear his father’s voice, guiding him, telling him how the story goes as he retells it to Percy.

The latter has fallen asleep long before the story has ended with the sailor and his seal-wife living happily ever after and he has noticed, because his pesky incessant questions have ceased a long while ago (“but last time you said the boat had fifty cannons!” “Shut up, do you want to hear the story or not? I know it’s always been a full hundred and let me speak.”), he continues to speak and tells the story to himself. It is oddly consoling and when he falls asleep for good, exhausted from talking so long, he feels as if his father is bending over his bed and bids him goodnight.

 

 

The following days are unpleasant to say the least, not only because his wounds only fade slowly to battle-scars. Some parents have written to his mother some begging, some demanding her to remove him from school for they don’t wish their boys (all not saints either, as he knows from first-hand experience) to be exposed to such a “vile threat” like him. His mother however remains steadfast and doesn’t even answer the letters. Instead, she watches them burn in the fireplace.

She is unhappy, he notices that, but in the days following what has quickly become customary to be referred to only as “the incident”, he tries his best to make her happy again. He helps her look  for a comb she has misplaced and shyly offers her some flowers he has bought from a country-girl walking down the street, her basket full of little arrangements of field and forest flowers that don’t look anything like Mrs Graves’ carefully arranged bouquets, but he finds them very pretty nevertheless.

The girl, perhaps a good five, six years his senior, had flashed him a broad smile and, in an even broader Devon accent, asked if the flowers were for his sweetheart. He'd blushed and said “it’s all right”, when she wanted to hand him his change, at which she had cheekily commented that perhaps he liked her, and that she would not say no to be the special friend of such a generous gentleman.

When the coming week’s end he and his brother are taken to see the Graves’ again, he is not surprised. In his hollow book, he has brought the magnifying glass to give back to the Admiral. He might be an arsonist, but he is no thief.

It is the first thing he does, giving it back, and the Admiral is kind to him, as kind as the situation allows and takes it back with a stiff nod and an offhand remark that he had wondered where it had gone.

Knowing his mother will ask his godfather to talk to him in a “fatherly” manner, hoping the Admiral will be able to “tame” him, as they call it, he is surprised to be sent outside to go and play, together with Percy and Mrs Graves’ little dog, a small, short-legged, long-eared creature called Bijou, a very un-patriotic name, and not one that should be given to a dog, even a female one (if he had a dog, he’d call her something like Diana or Hera or if he had a male one, perhaps Hercules or Zeus, in any case not something as silly as Bijou), but it’s Mrs Graves who has to live with her silliness every single day, not him.

Anyway, Bijou, happy to finally be allowed to follow her canine instincts instead of being carried around all day, runs like the wind, faster than he would have thought she ever could and for an hour or two, the world is as it should be, he and Percy throwing sticks they have found in the faraway (and far less cultivated) end of the garden, which she gladly retrieves, barking with delight.

Alas, their careless time ends too soon; they are called to come inside, Percy is instructed by the poor servant who must now comb the dry leaves and dirt out of Bijou’s long fur to join their mother and Elizabeth Sedgwick Graves in the ladies’ sitting room while he is asked to see his godfather in the study.

So now he will be punished again. His godfather is not a violent man, nor does he delight in shouting or being mean like Mr Trevelyan does, but he can become very angry, or at least has been once when he played a trick on Percy that frightened his brother so much he slept in Mother’s bed for the following two weeks.

“John”, he is greeted by Admiral Graves, his father’s commanding officer at sea and friend on dry land. Their friendship had been so strong his father had asked the Admiral to become his son’s godfather.

The Admiral tells him to sit down and (probably having heard everything from his mother already) rises from his own chair which he offers to him. It is rather comfortable and soft, which cannot be said about the chair opposite his godfather’s desk intended for visitors.

Thankful for his consideration and kindness, he shyly nods, dreading a little what will come now.

“I don’t know what else to do with you”, his godfather sighs, his warm, dark eyes focus on him with concern.

“You want nothing and yet, you startle us all again and again with regular reports of your escapades and your _wildness_ -“

At least, the Admiral doesn’t call it wickedness, for this particular noun he has heard being used once or twice too often in the past days to care about it anymore.

He shrugs.

“It wasn’t my fault last time, I didn’t say any bad words at all,  all I did was quoting Shakespeare.”

His teachers should be happy he had so far read all of the Bard’s most important works all by himself and memorised a great deal of them.

“All I was saying to Paul Dartfield was ' Thou elvish-mark'd, abortive, rooting hog! Thou that wast seal'd in thy nativity The slave of nature and the son of hell! Thou slander of thy mother's heavy womb! Thou loathed issue of thy father's loins! Thou rag of honour! thou detested-‚“

„That’s quite enough of that, my boy”, the Admiral stops him, to which he can only add defensively, “it wasn’t my fault the teacher doesn’t know his history plays.”

“Sadly”, his godfather begins, “not everybody has such a voracious appetite for literature as you do and you would do well to refrain from quoting passages that are either intended to or could be understood as a slight against another person.”

“Yes sir.”

“As for the most recent _business_ , I will detract the price for the new wig from your allowance and you will not be alone in this room anymore. It does you credit you have given back the item you have stolen from me, but if ever I catch you stealing again- Don’t do it again, do you hear me? You will resume your studies and continue obtaining a thorough education. It is your wish to one day become a gentleman and a soldier, is it not? Like your father.”

Surprised his godfather addresses this topic, he raises his head, his eyes a-glimmer. Of course he wants to be an officer one day, though he would like to command an army on land, not at sea, for he fears he might get seasick and everyone would laugh about a seasick Captain or Admiral.

“Yes sir, it is.”

“Your father was an upstanding gentleman, a good Christian and a model officer. If you want to be like him, an exemplary soldier that is, you must learn respect and obedience above anything else.”

“But I don’t want to be a private”, he frowns, “I want to be a general.”

“Even an officer must learn to follow before he can lead. As it happens, I have something I would like to give to you.”

What he is given are a few handwritten pages of paper titled _Rules for Your Conduct_.

“Your father gave this to me before he last went to sea, asking me to preserve it for his sons, in case he-“ he pauses, his voice sounding sad as he continues, “he gave it to me to give to his sons should he not be able to. Particularly to you, the eldest and my godson. He wrote this when you were but two years old and your mother and I always thought it was a little odd, albeit very endearing and caring of him to think of your progress in life at such an early age, but he was right, you are in grave need of this. Read it. I want you to study it as thoroughly as the Bible and learn it by heart. These are the rules of an officer, if you can follow them, you might become one of the greatest generals of your day- as far as I am informed, you certainly don’t lack the fighting spirit.”

“Thank you, sir.”

He bows, thinking he should leave now when his godfather abruptly calls him back:

“And, John? You might need this.”

The magnifying glass he has not long ago stolen from this very room is placed in his hands.

“I trust you not to use it in the ways you previously did ever again.”

 

 

In the evening, he begins his study of his father’s manuscript. What an odd feeling to be given something intended for him by his father three years after he didn’t come home. It’s a little bit as if he has come back, and of course he wants to make him proud.

 

  1. _Let the groundwork of your whole conduct be a just respect_



_for and love of God; know that with such respect, every man must_

_necessarily be brave, and without such due impression every man_

_must as necessarily be a coward._

  1. _The love of your Country and King, which necessarily flows_



_from the first maxim, must be your ruling principle; let no ill_

_usage taint this principle, to the observance of which you must_

_always and cheerfully be ready, when occasion calls to sacrifice_

_life, fortune and the strongest ties._

  1. _Cherish carefully that delicate and essential principle_



_Honour, which, if pure will readily dictate what is fittest to be done,_

_and what is to be avoided more than death._

  1. _Remember always that…_



 

He will do his best. He will try to remember, he _will_ try. 

 

 

*******

 

 

Much later in life, when he sits alone in his room far away from the study in Hembury Fort House, a veritable officer commanding his men, he wonders if he is doing it right. But what can he do? His former superior and commander of the regular garrison is incompetent in the extreme, the rebels are closing in and running an intelligence operation right under his nose, but of course, nobody wants to see it, they have captured him in the past and the entire town has no respect for the army at all and the war seems to turn in favour of these damned rebels- of what use are his father's maxims now? Perhaps it's simply a difference between war on land and war on the high seas, he muses. Or perhaps he truly is doing something wrong. But he is an officer now, isn't he? He wants to be good at what he does, wants to be the man they've always told him his father was, the admired and respected captain with two sons and a loving wife, a little family waiting for him at home.

He doesn't even have that and this war seems to call for another side of him, the one that everyone always condemned him for but that comes naturally to him and that has so far proven very effective in battle and on his missions. 

Perhaps one day when Anna Strong will realise- perhaps one day when this war is won, perhaps one day, when- perhaps one day, he can be the man his father has envisioned him to become. 

He tries to be. 

**Author's Note:**

> As always, I stick with Simcoe's historical backstory, even for this entirely fictional work, because TURN's deviation from history in this regard was totally unnecessary. In case you're interested in my take on how Simcoe comes to talk about his father being a surgeon in India instead of a naval Captain, I've written a story called "Calcutta Again" on this topic.
> 
> The "Rules for Your Conduct" really exist. Capt. John Simcoe, R. N., penned them in 1754 when his eldest son John Graves was two and his younger son Percy just about a few months old as maxims for their later education. Historically, these 19 rules made such an impression on Simcoe that he kept them and showed them to his own children, as a copy of "Rules for Your Conduct" annotated in Eliza Simcoe's handwriting (his eldest daughter, not to be confused with his wife after whom she was named) proves.  
> Well, even historically, Simcoe has not held true to all the guiding principles his father bequeathed to him; he advised against any kind of literature meant only for entertainment purposes and above all, poetry and also was a fan of mathematics, which his son is said not to have excelled in.
> 
> Simcoe's school which he attended prior to Eton while living in Exeter after his father's death is still in existence today under the name Exeter School. No school records prior to the mid- to late 1810s survive, so anything I have written about him here is made up, especially his very colourful disciplinary record and more molded to fit the TURN-version of him, not the historical character.  
> The school was formerly housed in a medieval hospital and has a house system with nine houses until this day. I tried to find out a little more about the significance of the houses today and the way the children are sorted (is there something like a Talking Tricorn perhaps? Do the kids get sorted for supposedly defining character traits?), but there isn't much information on that other that there are house-cups for sporting events (not Quidditch, though) and an annual musical performance competition.  
> By the way, one of the houses is called "Townsend". 
> 
> Benjamin Franklin's famous experiment with the kite was conducted in June 1752 and later in the 18th century, there are some awesome suggestions of how to experiment with electricity (not only with lightning). One article I once came across suggested an experiment with electricity and swords. Being a scientist back in the day must have been fun.
> 
> A friend from Simcoe's school days actually wrote a poem about the two of them having not infrequently been subjected to corporal punishment. This story is entirely fictional, but there are certain hints in history Simcoe wasn't a model student, though he probably never set fire to a teacher's wig.
> 
> In the "Inferno" of Dante's "Divine Comedy", fraudsters, under which thieves are listed, are placed in the eigth of nine circles of hell while people who act violently against others are sorted into the seventh. I leave it open to your interpretation if young Simcoe saved his classmate's soul. 
> 
> The Shakespeare-quote is genuine: Queen Margaret to Richard of Gloucester in "Richard III", act I, scene III.
> 
> My main sources of inspiration for young John Graves were Mary Lennox from "The Secret Garden" by Frances Hodgson Burnett (1911) and the young Jane Eyre in Charlotte Brontë's novel by the same name (1847).


End file.
